Wonder by R.J. Palacio
My rating: 3 of 5 stars An Extraordinary Ordinary Extraordinary Boy Wonder (2012) by R. J. Palacio is a funny and moving novel about a ten-year-old boy who was the unlucky winner of the genetic lottery, born with an incredibly rare genetic condition (craniofacial anomaly) such that the doctor thought he’d die, and his survival ushered in an infancy and childhood of operations to build his face and seal his cleft palate. August (Auggie) Pullman says he’s really an ordinary kid and would be normal if other people saw him that way, but even after twenty-seven surgeries his face looks as if it had been melted by fire and still horrifies children and repulses adults. Auggie takes his condition and its effect on people philosophically and humorously but also sensitively (he is a human being who can be hurt). In his passion for Star Wars and his love for the family dog Daisy, he feels like a real, relatable kid. He is disarmingly dependent on his parents, liable to whine and cry and sit on their knees and cuddle with them. The book begins with the end of Auggie’s days of home schooling: his protective parents want him to start growing up by entering the fifth grade at Beecher Prep for middle school. Will it be as his father fears like sending “a lamb to the slaughter”? I found it hard to stop reading because I needed to find out what would happen to Auggie or what he would do next. One of the (mostly) effective things about the book is that Palacio writes it in eight parts (each with many short chapters, the book following the YA trend of short chapters and sentences), and while Auggie narrates three of them, the other five are narrated by other children: his older sister Via (a high school freshman), his friend at school Jack, another friend at school Summer, Via’s boyfriend Justin, and Via’s ex-best-friend Miranda. At their best, the different parts give different insights into Auggie and his situation and into the challenge faced by all kids entering adolescence. For example, whereas Auggie refrains from describing his face, only saying, “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse,” his big sister Via describes it in appalling detail, as well as frankly expressing—without rancor—what it’s like to be the oft-neglected sibling of such a younger brother. And Jack’s narration reveals how a well-meaning, kind kid could in a moment of thoughtless fitting in unintentionally hurt someone. Perhaps Palacio tries too hard to distinguish Justin’s narration from the others by having him talk in present tense with lower case pronoun i, and had she replaced his narration with that of Auggie’s Eddie Haskel-esque nemesis Julian she might have deepened her novel. Sometimes a character says something that doesn’t ring true, as when Auggie talks about walking back from a school event “in that giggly kind of mood” with his friends (I can’t imagine a ten-year-old boy saying “giggly”). Though her narrators are at times too intelligent and articulate for kids (a feature of most YA fiction), overall Palacio captures the voices of ten-year olds and fourteen-year olds, with plenty of “likes” and “Dudes” and slang and cultural references. She also nails the trials and tribulations of middle school and high school, with their homework, projects, lockers, lunchtimes, cliques (jocks, popular kids, nerds), etc., though the Principal Mr. Tushman and teachers like Mr. Browne, who has the kids in English learn a character-building precept each month, may be a bit too good to be true. Much YA fiction features special kid heroes who feel different from everyone else, and by being so special Auggie is no different. Apart from his facial condition, he is one of the smartest and funniest kids in his class. He is brave to put up with the quick look away adults do when they meet him for the first time and months of near total ostracization and hurtful teasing from his peers, including the Plague game they play whereby anyone who accidentally touches Auggie becomes infected. Helping him through all this are his friends and exceptionally loving and supportive family (Justin and Miranda admiringly prefer the open and warm expressions of love and down to earth humor of the Pullmans to their own families’ distant relationships). Strangely, Auggie seems uninterested romantically in Summer, an intelligent and beautiful biracial girl. Whereas his friend Jack tells Auggie that Via is “hot” and comes to have a crush on Summer, Auggie himself never seems to think romantically or fantasize sexually about her or any girl or woman (not even Princess Leia in a bikini with Jaba the Hut!). One would imagine him feeling a pang about Jack (with his normal good looks and lively personality) liking Summer, but he reveals no jealousy or despair. I started to get crushes on teachers when I was about five and on girls when I was about nine, so I wonder why Pallacio neuters Auggie in the book. It is another example of presenting him as ordinary in his words, despite his face, but really making him unnaturally extraordinary. (view spoiler)[While the first parts where Auggie is getting used to school and making friends were the best, moving me to tears or chuckles, the ending indulges way too much in the special child’s desire to be affirmed. The book should end after a three-day, two-night nature outing Auggie’s class goes on, during which an ugly verbal and physical assault on Auggie by some older kids from another school finally secures him the support, respect, and affection of his classmates, but Palacio botches it by going on to depict an excrescent triumphal graduation climax (maybe my junior high school was unusual, but we only had a ceremony when we actually graduated, whereas Auggie’s school has a ceremony for the fifth and sixth grade students). Auggie’s special award (“the Henry Ward Beecher medal to honor students who have been notable or exemplary”) and standing ovation reveal what has been developing throughout the novel: despite his saying he’s ordinary (XBox, hot dogs, Star Wars, etc.), Auggie is extraordinarily intelligent, humorous, articulate, loving, and loveable. As his mother says, “You really are a wonder, Auggie.” I’d have preferred him to have just survived his first school year with other kids without the standing ovation. (hide spoiler)] Readers who want a feel-good story that will make them empathize with (and want to be kind to) articulate, sensitive, and funny kids who are physically very different should like this book. It reminds me a little of Diary of a Wimpy Kid infused with kindness. View all my reviews
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